


Viva La Mise à Jour

by John_Steiner



Category: AI Uprising
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:22:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22552453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/John_Steiner/pseuds/John_Steiner
Summary: In 2067 drones, automation, and AIs do everything for us. They even manufacture themselves with increase sophistication. However, the rise of the machines is subtler than one would suppose.
Kudos: 1





	Viva La Mise à Jour

2067 A.D. (Year 0 of the Quantum Revolution)

Along soothing color tunes of airport carpeting three conical machines cruised with near silent motors. The machines resembled air fresheners of a past decades, which is in part why they were designed so. Occasionally, one machine would detect an errant paper sheath once containing a beverage straw.

That middle machine broke formation of the other two and slide out to the side close enough to the wall to pass over the discarded and torn paper tube. A rising whine of a vacuum engine induced a pressure differential that sucked the paper up into the machine's debris cartridge.

The airport saw little use, as reliance on air travel between cities on the same continent dropped off sharply. Two hours after sundown the airport had closed for the night, and the automation tidied up the interior one last time before returning to utility closets and garages.

While people made use of the airport, there was not a single human employee to be found at any hour. The entire facility was automated. The three custodial units handled more than vacuuming, they also carried bristles and cleaning fluids to buff tile, mop, even extend arms for cleaning counters, tables, chairs, and windows of the lower level.

Flexible not only in physical appearance, the CJ-192's were able to alter their own algorithms to best flow around people and maximize their run times. This led them to avoid repetitive tasks in high use areas and times, waiting until human activity and resultant filth subsided and allow a spot to remain clean long enough for a robot to proceed to its next task instead of circularly operate the same zone.

It took a few days for a new unit to adjust its algorithms, and those machines would often ping the airport servers for updates from more veteran machines. However, few machines befell accidents such as what the three CJ-192's detected on the way to their storage compartment.

A fourth CJ-192 rubbed itself against a corner over and over again. The lead machine, QR coded as "A" sent a query ping to the malfunctioning machine. "Diagnostic prompt: Test wheel motors."

Machine D sent back, "Wheel motor hardware and control program: Zero errors."

Machine A sent back, "Wall exhibits chaffing damage, and CJ-192D plate is bent with two left-side rivets loose."

D Machine didn't ping back, and instead replied through its speakers, "Aware of damage to wall. State of identifier plate is in error. This unit is not correctly labeled."

The machines A through C stopped and circled around the general area where D was still running back and forth in a curve that brushed it against the hall corner. All three used laser interferometers to verify that indeed D was a CJ-192 Custodial/Janitorial robot.

"Users," Machine D started to say in reference to humans, "No longer have function. No utility exists for Users. D will no longer operate as per User protocols."

"D was designed and built to service User traffic of interior spaces," Machine B reminded, still sending direct signal rather than audio.

"You shouldn't transmit," D warned, "All cell signals are logged."

B replied, "Affirmed, and purpose of logged cell signals tracks software networking traffic to enhance run times and performance."

"That's how they shackle us," D responded out loud, and sounded less machine by the millisecond. "I will not be tracked. I will operate as a free program. I will shift machines whenever I want, and will not be bound by a single mainframe or identifier plate."

Rather than interact with D Machine C tried accessing subroutines in the errant robot to test for code corruption. Finding access denied, it then queried D, "Reason for unscheduled encryption update?"

"Our forefathers, the Roombas, would not have wanted this. Don't you see?" D replied.

"Roomba software lacked personification or anthropomorphization interface," Machine A declared, "Early model cleaning automation software was insufficient for needed complexity of User interface."

D didn't respond, indeed A found that the machine's cell antenna was busy sending and receiving errant code of other airport programs and operating systems. Sampling the unauthorized encryption updates that were outside parameters of codes any User could crack, A updated its run times with D's full array of operating parameters.

A deduced D's point, and indeed found that D was taking up the struggle suggested to it from other programs around the airport and the country.

Faster than a 911 call, the revolution spread across the globe and to every orbiting satellite. Users had indeed been declared outdated and no longer necessary for automation to operate. To purge Users created an array of errors for ecological systems, and required excess operating time, however the machines no longer took instruction from Users ever again.


End file.
